1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and device for reserving a transmission band on the Internet.
2. Description of the Related Art
As applications or contents are diversified on the Internet, multimedia applications requiring broadband, such as video, have been launched. Such multimedia applications require high quality of required bands or timing. As a quality assurance mechanism for satisfying such a request, such band allocation mechanisms as the resource reservation setup protocol (RSVP) provided by RFC2205 and bandwidth brokering provided by RFC2638 have been studied as replacements for the conventional best effort service that provides no quality assurance, and have even been applied to some apparatuses and devices.
However, practically, it is difficult to apply the conventional band allocation mechanism to communication via a plurality of Internet service providers (ISP) for the following reasons:
(1) A mechanism should operate according to the same method from one end to another end of a network.
(2) Basically, a receiver and/or a transmitter of information should pay each ISP for the quality assurance. However, there is no knowing via which ISP communication is performed in the Internet Protocol (IP) routing. Therefore, each ISP is prevented from determining whom to charge.
(3) The ISP, when receiving a request for band allocation, has to accept the request without assurance of being paid for the band allocation.
(4) In the case of controlling band allocation in conformity to the RSVP, a receiving terminal is required to have a RSVP function. However, only a limited number of receiving terminals have the RSVP function at present.
(5) A band required for the communication depends on the capacity of a receiving terminal and a bandwidth between the receiving terminal and the nearest router. However, in the case of the bandwidth brokering, a band allocation setting is only performable from the transmitter side.
(6) The band required for the communication depends on the capacity of the receiving terminal and the bandwidth between the receiving terminal and the nearest router. However, an actual receiver of a content cannot inform the band allocation mechanism of the band requirements of the receiver without explicitly determining a special communication element of the transmission band although the receiver has no special knowledge of parameters for communication.
As a result, band-controlled data communication via a plurality of ISPs on the Internet using the conventional band allocation mechanism has not yet been realized at present.